[Usability] Re: desktop entry names, generic?

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

On Thu, 2004-06-17 at 11:00 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> I really want to see the actual applications names somewhere, even if
> it's only in tooltips and in the menu when there are multiple
> applications installed.

The HIG recommendations for the tooltip is to describe the the tasks the
user can accomplish with the item.  The application name isn't
necessarily part of that description. 

With multiple applications (of the same type) installed, the non-GNOME-
standard application will display it's name in the "Proper Name +
Generic Name" format.

> If you want a list of standard GNOME modules, so you can give them
> priority, do you have to get this from the .desktop files? The list
> depends on the GNOME version, so maybe you can hard-code it into the
> menu code.

That's possible to do it this way.  I defer to whatever is easiest to
code. :-)

Cheers,
~ Bryan

> On Wed, 2004-06-16 at 18:14 -0400, Bryan Clark wrote:
> > Hi ~
> > 
> > doing both lists just to get the idea stated, but lets please keep any
> > discussion on the usability list only please.
> > 
> > We're updated the HIG recommendation for menu item names.  Currently we
> > are requiring a GenericName and Name for .desktop entries, where a
> > generic name is purely the applications functionality ("Web Browser")
> > with out it's application name and the name is the proper name which has
> > the applications name and its functionality together (App Name +
> > GenericName, "Epiphany Web Browser")
> > 
> > This separation of the two names provides us with the ability to give
> > functional names to applications when there is only one application
> > installed (having only one image viewer means that "Joe Image Viewer"
> > displays as "Image Viewer".  This also gives proper names to
> > applications when there is more than one installed (having two image
> > viewers would display what each applications name is, "Joe Image Viewer"
> > and "Crackbox Image Viewer").  
> > 
> > Problem being that in this discussion came the idea that the GNOME base
> > applications should carry only the GNOME brand.  When I say the GNOME
> > brand, what I mean is _no brand at all_.  So if "Joe Image Viewer" is
> > part of the desktop release and the default GNOME Image Viewer it's menu
> > item name remains "Image Viewer", no matter how many other Image Viewer
> > applications are installed in parallel.  Now when the user installs
> > "Crackbox Image Viewer" the "Joe Image Viewer" retains the name "Image
> > Viewer" as it's 'brand' or proper name is to be a part of the desktop.
> > 
> > As a short side note to this of course is that if the user uninstalled
> > "Joe Image Viewer", then the "Crackbox Image Viewer" would display it's
> > generic name "Image Viewer" because it would be the only application of
> > that generic name.
> > 
> > Recommending that the desktop files come with both GenericName and Name
> > in the format specified provides us with the ability to display either
> > as seen fit (good).  However there is no indicator for a GNOME standard
> > Desktop module in the .desktop file so we would know what applications
> > are part of the GNOME Desktop release and what are not (bad).  A simple
> > X-GNOME-Desktop=true could provide this, assuming the code interpreted
> > it correctly.
> > 
> > The cheap alternative for the Desktop release would be to scrap the Name
> > field entry in favor of the generic, going against the spec so that it
> > always displayed the generic name. (i'm not in favor of: bad)
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > ~ Bryan
> > 
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